Tag: BBQ

If Focaccia is half way between pizza and bread, then Schiacciata is half way between Focaccia and Pizza. It is flat and usually infused beautifully with olive oil.

Originally cooked in the ashes of the hearth, schiacciata, meaning squashed, is flat and 2 – 3 cm thick (but can be thinner). Variations of the bread are made throughout Italy. In Tuscany, it is simply brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Herbs such as rosemary can be added. A sweet version with grapes and sugar is also made.

This recipe with onion and cheese is great weekday lunch-at-home fare, even for Sunday night supper. It is great with a hearty soup. Maybe Onion Soup would be fabulous. In late Summer, pair it with ripe, bursting figs and celebrate the end of summer.

The BBQ is lit to make a quick lunch, so afterwards I roast some red capsicums while we eat. These will make a super salad to go with dinner. There is definitely something about roasted capsicums, skin removed, flesh soft. It evokes summer nights with its colour and utter deliciousness.

While this dish can be cooked on the stove top or in the oven, it is the perfect dish for a weekend BBQ. Served with yoghurt and flatbread, it is a perfect light weekend lunch.

Use either hot or mild banana chillies. Hot Banana chillies contrast well with the more mild filling. Mild Banana chillies have a mild sweet flavour, despite their chilli-related name. They are not at all hot or spicy. And we temper the heat of the spices in the stuffing by using warming spices and only a little chilli, adjusted to your taste.

Bharwan means stuffed in Hindi. The stuffing is made from chickpea flour and spices, moistened with tomatoes. You can basically add any ingredient of your choice into the stuffing. The combination of the banana chillies and mild tangy stuffing is quite flavoursome and this dish makes a great light lunch or side dish. It is a recipe from Rajasthan in India.

Grape vine leaves add a subtle flavour to dishes that are cooked on them – even wood-fired BBQs using grape vine “wood” adds a subtle taste and aroma to foods cooked over that fire.

It is a wonder that we don’t use vine leaves more for baking foods. As well as the flavour, the leaves themselves can be eaten if you have baked in a low heat (otherwise, they go a little crispy).

Elizabeth David in her beautiful book An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, gives a recipe for baking mushrooms with vine leaves. She first saw the recipe in Edmond Ridhardin’s 1913 book L’Art du Bien Manger. It is as good today as it was a century ago.

This recipe comes from the Asparagus Growers in Victoria, and it is quite a Summer hit. It is the recipe attached to the bunches of Asparagus we buy in the shop. With the BBQ (Grill) heated to roast some eggplant, it seemed perfect to throw the Asparagus on too. The asparagus spears are coated in a yummy dressing with cumin and coriander powder before being quickly grilled on the BBQ hotplate. Straight to the table from there, it is a quick and easy recipe.

AND we put the leftover oil-lemon juice-spice mixture to good use in the Grilled Eggplant with Tahina (the reason the eggplants were being roasted). A perfectly timed coincidence.

On a sunny and beautiful day in Autumn or Spring it is tempting to fire up the BBQ on the balcony, and get the field mushrooms out of the fridge.

Mushrooms cook well on Aussie BBQs (I guess these are called grills in the US). Drizzled with oil, cooked over a medium heat until softening, topped with some fresh and beautiful ingredients, and served when bubbling and sizzling. Truly a taste worthy of an outdoor meal.

It is really nice to come home from work, turn the heater on, and light the BBQ. With a bit of forethought, I had remembered to marinate some eggplant in the morning and left it to sit for the day in the fridge. Eggplant has a wonderful ability to absorb flavours, and the smokiness that cooking it on a hot plate on the BBQ makes a surprisingly divine dish.

While the BBQ is hot, cook some side dishes too – tomatoes, onions, fennel, asparagus, capsicum – there are so many vegetables that are also BBQ-friendly. And the aromas that surround you while they are cooking! Aaah, life is good.

Tomatoes are very special fruits, very versatile ingredients that match well both with so many cooking methods and with a variety of other ingredients. Can you imagine a world without the humble tomato?

This recipe is very simple, paring it back to the basics. Yet the result, as so often is the case, is outstanding. Bake a double batch and use the left over tomatoes in salads, sauces and soups, using them whole, chopped or pureeing them for their intended use.

The tomatoes can be cooked in the oven or in or on a BBQ. It is a perfect vehicle for home grown organic tomatoes. In autumn, serve with grilled polenta and a salad.

Who doesn’t like tandoor-style dishes? Although we can’t normally have a tandoor oven at home, cooking tandoor dishes in the oven or on the stove top, even on the BBQ, is very possible. These Tandoor Potatoes are amazing – don’t expect them to last very long in your kitchen. A perfect snack, or a side dish for your meal.

Perfect eggplants are a glory to look at. Shimmering purple, with a promise of so much under that sometimes tough outer purple layer. Then ther are the Thai globular eggplants, gorgeous again in their sheer perfection. It is rare that a week goes by without us slice or dicing, baking or grilling eggplants. Japanese cuisine, Indian dishes and Middle Eastern food are just rife with the best of ways to use eggplants.

Nigel Slater though, is generally purely British in his approach to food, and unashamedly so. He doesn’t like to steam eggplant, for example (one of my favourite ways with this vegetable. However I love his books and his one-eyed approach. At the moment I am finding Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries I and II very inspiring for evening supper-type meals. Quick to cook, open to adjustment, not too many steps or ingredients, his (vegetarian) food is my food at the moment. I am often home late-ish, so something quick and healthy is perfect for me.

And just to break the stereotype, this dish have overtones of, perhaps, a combination of Greek, Italian and Middle Eastern food.

The cookbook that is featuring at the moment is Community, Salad Recipes from Arthur’s Kitchen. Great food is on every page. The salads do take a bit of pre-planning and time to prepare, but are worth it, and I always make enough to last for lunches and quick dinners.

This salad can be made a lot more simply than appears on the pages of the book IF, like me, you always have some bibs and bobs around that you have precooked, perhaps in the freezer, definitely in the fridge.

The secret to pulling a meal together really quickly is to have prepared lots of bibs and bobs beforehand, so that there is always inspiration in the fridge.

The secret to pulling a meal together really quickly is to have prepared lots of bibs and bobs beforehand, so that there is always inspiration in the fridge. Toppings for soups, ingredients for salads, pastes and sauces, for stirfries, things to be mixed into batters and doughs, chopped herbs, frozen and dehydrated bits, stocks, juices, jams, pickles and chutneys, …… Endless, endless varieties.

Here is another quicky. Char Grill some sweetcorn while you are cleaning up from the evening’s meal. It will be cooked before you finish. Use the kernels in salads and soups.

Another warm day, and cooking on the BBQ seems like a good idea. It is quite easy to cook these pastries in a covered BBQ.

Another warm day, and cooking on the BBQ seems like a good idea. It is quite easy to cook these asparagus pastries in a covered BBQ. But it does need good quality asparagus – stringy stalks spoil the experience. You can, of course, cook these in the oven as well, at about 200C.